


Prompt: Deaf

by Frankengal



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Deaf Character, F/F, Misunderstandings, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frankengal/pseuds/Frankengal
Summary: Rose is temporarily deaf, and Juleka overreacts.
Relationships: Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Prompt: Deaf

Once the initial worry about the news had subsided, and after a very intense message session in which Juleka made a mountain of a molehill, and it was determined that Rose was not dying in any way, the two made several small changes to their lives. Much to Rose's amusement and dismay, Juleka had gone through several extensive measures to prevent the scare from happening again

She employed Max and Markoff to set upper sound limits on all of Rose's electronics, took beyond-extensive notes in class to help Rose keep up, and wrote an hour-long note to Rose about repeatedly blasting the old tracks from their band on worn-out headphones.

She had only spent an hour writing it. It took considerably longer for her to sit Rose down and watch her read the letter like a hawk, pausing her every few paragraphs for pinky promises.

Rose never told the concerned girl that is wasn't her old headphones that caused her temporary hearing loss... It was the new, very pricey ones. And her eardrums only ruptured because she had paid Max to make an in-line equalizer booster that blew out those pricey, brand new headphones.

As mad as Rose was about the lost headphones (and hearing), she didn't eat Max out to Juleka last she direct the full extent of her fury on him.

So they compromised. Juleka took notes in class while Rose intently studied her face, instead of their usual reversed roles. Study sessions were now at the school library, safely away from the stage equipment on the Liberty and Rose's own modified electronics (despite Rose pointing out that they couldn't do much damage while she was still deaf). Juleka had also asked everyone at their usual lunch table to converse in group chat for their tiny classmate's benefit.

The last gesture was certainly a sweet one, and Rose took to the group chat excitedly, prompting Juleka to take to reminding her to eat every few minutes. If Rose was too absorbed in the message she was typing at the moment, Juleka would simply reach over with her own fork loaded up and wave it in front of Rose until she took a bite.

The first time Rose realized it was Juleka's fork instead of her own, she had set aside her phone for the remainder of lunch, keeping her head down to focus on her food, as well as to hide her blush.

Thereafter, she focused on trying to decipher the muffled voices around her past her hearing protection. She took note of gestures and facial expressions. Especially Juleka's. Had she not abandoned the group chat in favor of her new habit, she would have missed it. It would have gone right over her head or, rather, she would have been surrounded by it and clueless...

Whatever their friends were saying to Juleka made her blush. Several times per lunch period. Before and after school. During movie nights when Rose ignored the subtitles in order to find a pattern.

If she was a little upset at Max for profiting off both her electronics upgrades and Juleka's subsequent downgrading of them, she was very upset with herself for getting in her current predicament.

Someone else, or several someones, were making Juleka blush. Her Juleka. And she had been too caught up in the extra attention her tall drink of wat- her tall friend was giving her to notice the extra attention everyone was giving the tall girl.

Now, she didn't mean to be overprotective or jealous. Juleka was allowed to have friends, of course.

But if any of those so-called friends tried to ask her Juleka out....

Her search history had become alarmingly dark for a perpetually positive girl like herself. This prompted Max to speak to Juleka, and in turn for Juleka to write to Rose. Rose merely switched from regular tabs to incognito tabs when she got bored and looked up methods of revenge. Just in case.

Soon enough she had taken to accidentally ignoring her lunch again and for Juleka to begin nudging and occassionally feeding her again. While this time she saw the latter as a reassurance that Juleka's attentions wouldn't wander too far, the entire group picked up on it too quickly for Rose's liking. The group chat was back in full swing, and everyone was turning their attention from Juleka to Rose.

She felt a little guilty, and a little guilty pleasure, in that particular side effect. She had played it off as a new hobby, which the group was only too glad to help her out with. She lied through her fingers that she was learning how to lip read. She explained much to Juleka's amusement (which earned her a cherished blush as well) that it was difficult to learn to lip read with Juleka when she rarely spoke and kept her face half covered as it was.

Juleka began to wear a hair clip during their conversations. Each of their friends took turns during lunch to quiz Rose on what they were saying, having her write down words and phrases. In the library while she studied with Juleka, once their homework was finished, the taller girl would pull her hair away from her face and take her turn tos train Rose. Rose revelled in having another, completely valid, reason to study the other girl's face. Sometimes as a result, it would take her a while to stop daydreaming about pale lips and the subtle shift of the muscles in Juleka's neck below the dark fabric of her collar, but it was worth it. Juleka was blushing furiously by the time their study dates were over.

The bliss lasted for a week before Rose was faced with another obstacle: The group had begun to use sign language to communicate while Rose was distracted by lip reading sessions.

Curse it all. They were making her Juleka blush again. At least this time she had a better idea of what kind of revenge tactics she would use.

Nothing harmful, no. Just annoying.

"Stolen" school supplies that would show up later was a gentle enough punishment, she reasoned.

Rewrapping cinnamon candies in a strawberry candy wrapper would only work once or twice per person, though it would be hilarious.

"Kick me" signs, another great classic. They were also largely only snickered at, so they would be relatively safe. Unless Chloe saw it.... Rose scrapped that plan.

Rose returned to her observations, ditching the lip reading entirely. It took her a couple days to realize it would be much more effective to actually study sign language first.

On her own, of course. She didn't want to tip off the others that she was, yet again, zoned in on their plans to steal her beautiful girl.

As it turned out, Ros was a natural at remembering the signals and gestures, as well as their accompanying facial expressions, though she owed that in part to her last ditched hobby. She began to use her private tabs for her sign language videos, researching every topic that they could possibly be communicating about behind her back: Beauty, dating, weather, locations, how-to-ditch-that-girl-thats-always-with-you, among others...

After on weekend of intense, shut-in studying and a pitiful amount of sleep, Rose felt prepared for her first (well, third, but first successful) attempt at spying on their conversations.

What she had not anticipated that Monday was Juleka's return to silence. During first period, Rose reasoned that it may have been just a late night of studying, maybe bass practice, or a skipper cup of coffee... It was odd, but Juleka offered her a smile, so Rose hoped it was just a minor thing.

It took two more class periods for Rose to notice something much more alarming; Juleka's black and purple hair again covered half her face.

Lunch was devoid of the muffles voices and laughter Rose had become accustomed to.

The final straw had been rushing to the library after last period and glancing over in time to see Juleka leaving the school. Alone.

Rose hadn't run so fast even during the threat of an akuma attack. This was far worse. Something was bothering her Juleka, and she had to set it right.

She caught up to the taller girl within a couple blocks, watching Juleka turn to her with wide eyes as she had most likely been tipped off by the sound of Rose's sandals slamming on the pavement.

The Liberty was closer than Rose's house by then, so she simply grabbed Juleka's wrist and power walked her to the houseboat. As soon as she and Juleka entered the cabin she shared with her brother Luka he took a hint and left without preamble. Rose finally stopped and turned to look at Juleka. Her heart stopped.

There was a trail of tears from Juleka's visible eye, and she kept her face tilted down towards the ground. Rose, rather than waste time finding a pen and some paper, gently pulled Juleka's bag from her shoulder and deposited both bags by her computer chair. She pulled Juleka towards her bed to sit and wrapped her arms around her.

They sat in silence for a while, holding each other as Juleka's breathing evened out. Rose spent those minutes thinking of all the revenge plans that had just missed the cut.

Anyone who hurt her Juleka deserved a worse punishment.

It wasn't until Juleka could manage to write out her troubles in Rose's bright pink notebook that Rose realized she would have to tape the "kick me" sign to her own back. For in all the time she had spent studying sign language, she had given few and far between replies to Juleka and the group chat. Juleka had taken the sparse, vague messages to mean she had done something wrong. She had spent most of the weekend with the other girls, barely avoiding akumatization as they assured her repeatedly that she had done nothing wrong.

Rose knew this was her fault. She had to fix it.

She scooted back to the wall, pulling Juleka along so the taller girl could lean against her as she began to write her apology. While it was still vague compared to her usual rants, she took her time to carefully write out her apology for not speaking to her sweet Juleka more. 

By the time she had finished writing, Juleka had slumped over her pillow and fallen asleep. Rose retrieved a throw blanket from the nearby shelves and settled herself into Juleka's arms, trying to gently rearrange the blanket over them without waking her.

There were so many reasons why Rose loved Juleka's family, the quiet goth being the biggest reason. She found the runner-up reason when Luka reappeared. He strolled right over to Juleka's bed to secure the blanket over them gently. He then settled a gentle kiss on both girls'forehead and made himself scarce with a whispered "goodnight."

By the time they awoke the next morning, Juleka was in much better spirits. When Rose re-entered her cabin after changing into borrowed, oversized, dark clothing in the bathroom, Juleka had her hair clapped back and two thermoses of coffee prepared for their trip to school.Rose couldn't find it in her to mind the stairs she got when she showed up at school in her brand new look. And when they sat down for lunch, she couldn't find it in herself to mind the hours of sleep she had lost over the weekend, studying and ignoring everybody.

She finally knew why Juleka was blushing at what her friends were signing and implying to Juleka. Her Juleka. She even found herself blushing. 

Perhaps she should have just worn her clothes from the other day, wrinkled or otherwise, but it was too cute to watch as Juleka vehemently denied any.... less-than-innocent interactions between them the night before.

She decided she could burn her revenge plans later. For the moment, she simply enjoyed watching her friends encouraging and convincing Juleka to finally just ask her out.

Rose decided she would answer that question, whenever it came, with a long reply.

All in sign language.


End file.
